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Chapter Five CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
Before concluding this study of the concept of philosophy discernible in the Jaina tradition I deem it necessary to indicate the broad lines of argument presented in the preceding pages. Rather than merely summarising the viewpoint taken, I propose to highlight the significance of certain considerations which are crucial to an understanding of the Jaina view of philosophy.
The very title, Jainism as Metaphilosophy, would perhaps have indicated that the study undertaken has been aimed at indicating the contribution of this ancient Indian tradition to the on-going discussion concerning the aim, method, subject-matter and scope of philosophy. Obviously we have had to reconstruct the argument from the Jaina angle
ek to find an answer to the question : "How can the scope of philosophy be defined ?” The main reason for the restructuring has beer that unlike us (the 'moderns') who are involved in the discussion, the ancient Indian philosophers were not primarily concerned with the question in so far as philosophy was not considered an academic study merely. All the same, the concepts characterising their systems have provided us with the grist for our discussion. It has thus involved some interpretation of the concepts by visualising the rationale behind the concepts themselves. The concept of philosophy has thus been identified with the help of concepts in philosophy.
In keeping with our basic approach to Jainism not as an autonomous tradition, but as an integral aspect of Indian thought, we commenced our disquisition with a reference to the general Indian concept of darśana as
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